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I wanted to start today's conversation by defining what turns a sports injury into a stupid sports injury. Turns out I'm not smart enough to do that, so I'll get around it the same way Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart did when he couldn't define "pornography." Said Potter: "I know it when I see it." Works for me. I know a stupid sports injury when I see it — such as last Sunday when Chicago Bears defensive tackle Lamarr Houston sacked the immortal New England quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo near the end of a blowout Bears' loss and tore his ACL by jumping in pointless celebration. He gets the rest of this season — and perhaps the...

Related "Sammy Sosa" Articles

I wanted to start today's conversation by defining what turns a sports injury into a stupid sports injury. Turns out I'm not smart enough to do that, so I'll get around it the same way Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart did when he couldn't define...

For more than 30 years, Ken Burns has created documentaries about United States history.
Baseball is part of that history, and Burns' Emmy Award-winning series on the sport 20 years ago examined the national pastime through the years.
Burns will be at...

PBS today announced premiere dates for fall programming. “American Masters” will look at the last decade of John Lennon'sÂ life. The program, with the working title “John Lennon — New York City,” will air Nov. 22, shortly bef

TAMPA, Fla. — When tainted slugger Alex Rodriguez arrived early at Yankees camp last month, team officials fumed over the fact he didn't tell them he was coming.
It was a preemptive strike from "A-Rod,'' getting his apology out of the way before the...

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Bruce Pearl is sitting on the bench at Rupp Arena, watching his Auburn players launch shots on the morning of the Kentucky game.
“Basketball,” he says in a voice that harkens to Sammy Sosa and a “Saturday Night Live” skit, “has been...

SAN PEDRO de MACORIS, Dominican Republic — Winding through the dusty and chaotic streets crammed with honking cars and buzzing scooters, you'd never know this coastal city is a baseball mecca.
But past the rows of one-room concrete buildings with peeling...

MESA, Ariz. — Eleven years after an unknown Cubs player smashed Sammy Sosa's boom box in a mystery that remains unsolved, music filled the air Wednesday morning during the first full workout at Cubs' camp.
Let it be recorded for posterity's sake the...

MESA, Ariz. -- Although he has yet to officially retire, Manny Ramirez said he's "blessed" to be with the Chicago Cubs as a hitting consultant.
"I feel great," Ramirez said Wednesday before the first full squad workout. "I’m just...

MESA, Ariz. — Loud music will be a staple of preworkout stretching.
Teaching tools such as a pitching machine that hurls smaller baseballs and 36-ounce bats will be implemented later.
But still no Sammy Sosa.
Welcome to this spring's Cubs under new...

Former Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa will not be attending the funeral of Ernie Banks on Saturday, a friend of Sosa's told the Tribune on Wednesday.
Sosa is scheduled to travel Saturday to Japan on a business trip that already had been pushed back as he...

News of Ernie Banks’ passing Friday night shocked me.
Nobody that relentlessly upbeat could be part of such a bummer.
I never thought Ernie was immortal to the point he would be saying “Let’s play two’’ until the planet exploded into a trillion...

Bill Belichick played the rumpled dunce, wrinkled sweatshirt, rolled-up sleeves, the world's most detailed football coach shrugging and sighing and professing to have no idea about footballs.
"I had no knowledge of the various steps involved in...

This column was orginially published on July 24, 2005.
Two steps into the swanky Ritz-Carlton hotel in this Pacific Ocean postcard of a town off the western edge of Los Angeles, Ernie Banks asked the hostess he'd just met about her...

Over the next 51 weeks or so, you can expect in this space coverage of the biggest and brightest in Chicago-area museums. But for your New Year's Day, we've got Hummels, money, sports memorabilia and buttons — plus a roundup of 14 other smaller and/or...

Crane Kenney, president of business operations for the Cubs, said the target date for the opening of the left field bleachers is early May and late May for the right field bleachers.
Bleacher season ticket holders have three options for home...

NEW YORK — Eleven months after Roger Clemens left Boston to embark on the twilight of his career, Pedro Martinez arrived as the new pitching ace of the Red Sox.Over the next seven seasons, Martinez was among the best pitchers in baseball while Clemens...

Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez are the yin and yang of baseball's 2015 Hall of Fame class, proving it's not the size of the player that matters as much as what's inside of him.Johnson and Martinez join fellow pitcher John Smoltz and second baseman Craig...

Sammy Sosa probably has one more shot on the Hall of Fame ballot before putting his faith in a future Veterans Committee.The former Cubs outfielder, who hit 609 career home runs, received just 6.6 percent of the 549 votes the Baseball Writers' Association...